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Visa Describes NFTs As Promising Means To Engage With The Fans

Visa now makes a full head plunge into the NFTs following its evaluation of the technology behind the assets. The global payment giant described NFTs as having the potential to serve as the engagement medium for fans. Visa made this description through its recent whitepaper publication.

The publication suggests that Visa sees non-fungible tokens as a crucial innovation during the recent pandemic. The publication observed that strict restriction orders cause a limitation to live sports, music festivals, and entertainment.

Related Reading | Former DigitalX Executive Appointed As The New Binance Australia CEO

The emergence of NFTs came when fans are eager to join digital communities that portray their favorite sports teams and artists.

What Will Trigger The Move For NFTs?

Professional sports got the hardest blow from the pandemic. There’s an estimation of an $18 billion revenue loss across the major global leagues.

Visa envisages that this further pushes for the need for revenue diversification and more focus on technology. This will bring repositioning for more business growth opportunities and gain more fans’ attention and participation.

According to the report, NFTs are attractive to fans, leagues, teams, talents, and collectors. It further unveils the peculiarity of the NFTs as the basic sources of fan engagement, fresh revenue streams, and customer relationship management. However, the major utility situations of NFTs so far are art, gaming, and collectibles.

The release of the whitepaper came with an announcement from Visa on the purchase of CryptoPunk 7610, its first NFT. Visa bought the NFT for $150,000, and the token has its proof of ownership stored on the Ethereum network. The collection comprises 10,000 unique NFTs.

Industry sources record the sales of 2,519 CryptoPunk collectibles within the past 30 days—the sales sum amount to $467.4 million. The highest-grossing sale within the period falls on CryptoPunk 7252, sold for 1,600 ETH, worth $4.5 million.

Besides the increased adoption for CryptoPunk, NFTs are also gaining popularity in other niches. There’s a report that the NFT marketplaces net sales in August will surpass $900 million.

This sets the industry’s new record. The previous record, set in May, was when the net NFTs sales hit $255 million. The month of May saw the crypto markets reaching new all-time highs and then proceed to a multi-month correction experience.

Related Reading | Cream Finance Loses $25 Million To A Flash Loan Attack

Visa’s plunge into NFTs is not a surprise move as the company already has a growing interest in cryptocurrencies. The firm had a recent agreement with Zipmex, a crypto platform.

This results in the provision of crypto payment integration within the Asia-Pacific region. In addition, earlier in the year, Visa confirmed its commitment to establishing crypto payment and fiat on-ramps. This was its move to boost the class of digital assets.

Featured Image From Pixabay

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Former DigitalX Executive Appointed As The New Binance Australia CEO

The former executive of the first blockchain listed publicly is now the current CEO of Binance Australia. The exchange announced Leigh Travers’s appointment. The new CEO was formerly the chief executive of DigitalX, a locally known blockchain technology and payment enterprise.

Leigh Travers served seven years at DigitalX. He also served as a board member in Blockchain Australia, the local leading blockchain sector body. DigitalX broke records as the first publicly-listed blockchain organization in June 2014.

Related Reading | Cryptocurrency Firms In Switzerland To Offer Tokenized Products On Tezos

This announcement was made after the firm completed the reverse takeover of Macro Energy Ltd, an Australian Stock Exchange-listed Firm.

Travers Reaction To The New Office

Leigh Travers disclosed that his priority is to build relationships for Binance Australia with regulators. Also, he emphasized that he aims to grow Australia’s brand.

He stated that the company has a special part to play: to become involved in assisting in structuring the industry’s growth. That is why; they need to prioritize conversations and engagements with regulators and policymakers, says Travers.

In his speech, Travers added that “looking from the industry’s viewpoint, I’m aware that it is essential to continue developing the sector’s relationship with the regulatory bodies. Also, we need to strengthen Binance Australia’s dedication to compliance as well as best practice.

Binance Australia Launch

July 2020 brought the official launching of crypto exchange Australia. Meanwhile, InvestbyBit operates the Australian Binance subsidiary.

InvestbyBit is a locally operating digital asset platform that AUSTRAC (Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre) regulates. The platform went into operations on Sept. 2017.

As we gathered from the Australian Business Register reports, on February 22, 2019, InvestbyBit was rebranded to Binance Pay. Four days later, it changed its brand to Binance Lite. Then, again on August 6, 2020, the company undertook another rebranding to become Binance Australia.

In April, Jeff Yew, the former CEO of Binance Australia, resigned from the company. After leaving Binance Australia in April, Jeff launched Monochrome in May. Monochrome is a unit trust which targets funds as well as high net worth persons.

In his speech at Sydney Morning Herald last May, Leigh Yew expressed that Australia’s policymakers failed in their duty to deliver sufficient regulatory clarity to the digital asset zone.

Related Reading | Cream Finance Loses $25 Million To A Flash Loan Attack

Thus, he calls for higher regulation in crypto trading exchanges. Most especially since many retail investors and institutions now admire digital assets like Ethereum and bitcoin.

The cryptocurrency market is following an uptrend on the daily chart | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap on TradingView.com

Yew acknowledged that Australia is more up-to-date with its regulations as compared to other economies. However, there is the need to work harder on regulation to stop dodgy operators from exploiting everyday investors.

Featured Image From Pixabay, Chart From TradingView.com

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Cream Finance Loses $25 Million To A Flash Loan Attack

PeckShield reported through a tweet of the new hack on Cream Finance. The blockchain security company said a flash loan attack on the decentralized finance lending and borrowing protocol.

#FlashLoanAlert https://t.co/JPW7e368qd

— PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) August 30, 2021

PeckShield explained that the hacking came through a 500 Ethereum flash loan from the attacker. This was used to infiltrate a reentrancy bug in the smart contract of the Flex Network. Usually, flash loans being undercollateralized can be borrowed and repaid within a single transaction.

Related Reading | Cryptocurrency Firms In Switzerland To Offer Tokenized Products On Tezos

As a DeFi protocol for lending, Cream Finance allows users to earn interest from their deposited assets. Though Cream Finance is a fork of the Compound protocol, its operation is quite different from Compound or Aave. The platform has several more markets for some esoteric digital assets.

1/4 @CreamFinance was exploited in (one hack tx: https://t.co/JPW7e368qd), leading to the gain of ~$18.8M for the hacker.

— PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) August 30, 2021

This attack on Cream Finance was exploitation involving 1,308 Ethereum and over 418 million AMP, the native token of Flexa Network. According to PechShield, the Ethereum records reveal that over $6 million were hacked at 5:44 UTC.

Cream Finance Becomes Another DeFi Protocol Hacked In 2021

Furthermore, the Cream Finance team members confirmed the authenticity of the hacking reporting. Then, reporting on Discord Channel, the project’s official channel, the members started working with PeckShield.

The team revealed that the hacking was on the CREAM v1 market on the Ethereum Blockchain. Furthermore, they mentioned that it’s through the reentrancy of the contract on the AMP token.

At the time of writing, AMP’s value has dipped by 15% within few hours to $0.05. Also, the value of Cream Finance’s native token, CREAM, plummeted by about 6%.

However, ETH is at $3, 190.46 showing a slight dipping within the last 24 hours. The total amount of the Crean Finance hacking is more than $25 million. The address of the hackers shows that they presently have about $18.8 million.

Amidst the hack, Cream Finance is down by 6% | Source: CREAMUSD on TradingView.com

The Cream Finance team has put a stop to any further loss. The team said that it now has a pause on AMP’s supply and borrow. It further acknowledged that the hack doesn’t affect any other market. Eason Wu, the protocol’s production Manger, disclosed this information on Discord.

Recall that earlier in the year; Cream Finance had a huge hack. The attack led to the loss of $37.5 million worth of digital assets. According to the report, the earlier hacking had a root cause from the exploitation of Alpha Finance.

Related Reading | Reports Show 45% Surge In Stock And Cryptocurrency Sign-Ups Across Rural Areas In India

Flash loans have remained one of the controversial features of decentralized finance. This’s because there’s no collateral needed for the loans, and hence, they are susceptible to hacks. This accounts for the recent attacks and hacks of flash loans.

A similar incident is a hack on the Bilaxy crypto exchange on August 28. The exchange had a huge hot wallet hack that compromised about 295 ERC-20 tokens. Also, a hack on Liquid on August 19 resulted in a loss of about $100 million.

Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView.com

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Cryptocurrency Firms In Switzerland To Offer Tokenized Products On Tezos

Crypto Finance, Inacta, and InCore Bank have combined to form the Swiss financial trio, and they have joined forces in establishing financial products regulated on Tezos.

The three Switzerland firms focus on crypto; they use the Tezos blockchain to provide institutions tokenized assets. Their major target is to serve and satisfy institutional clients.

FINMA is partnering with Inacta and InCore Bank to provide regulated financial products with the recent tokenization process. The company announced this on Tuesday, adding that the process will follow the standard of Tezos FA2.

FINMA is the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority is the Swiss government body responsible for financial regulation.

Related Reading | Reports Show 45% Surge In Stock And Cryptocurrency Sign-Ups Across Rural Areas In India

It’s a licensed cryptocurrency trading firm established in 2007 with Mark Branson as the CEO. Their services include the supervision of banks, stock exchanges,  insurance companies, securities dealers, and other financial intermediaries in Switzerland.

InCore Bank had announced the onboarding of institutional-grade staking, storage, and trading services. This would be for XTZ, the Tezos blockchain native cryptocurrency.

The Tezos blockchain

Tezos is an open-source Proof of Stake, a decentralized blockchain network capable of executing peer-to-peer transactions. In addition, it serves as a platform for deploying smart contracts with the Tez as its native crypto represented as XTZ.

Tezos was among the first blockchains to integrate a proof-of-stake consensus system in 2018. Tezos has its foundation located in Switzerland, similar to other public blockchain foundations.

Crypto Finance acts as the provider of the infrastructure on the project while InCore Bank carries out tokenization. The Bank would use the new ‘DAR’ standard of 1 token on Tezos built by Inacta.

According to Stijn Vander Straeten, Swiss regulators are not far from issuing approval to the first tokenized product on Tezos.

Stijn Vander Straeten is the CEO of Crypto Finance (Infrastructure Services) AG in the Crypto Finance Group.

Before joining the firm, Stijn worked for a fintech bank in Zug as the CEO. He has thirteen years of experience in the banking, wealth, and asset management sectors, holding various positions in senior management.

Areas To be Tokenized on Tezos

Vander Straeten revealed their plans while talking about the areas to be tokenized on XTZ. He stated that We would definitely kick start with the simpler ones, mostly in private debt. Then we will gradually move into the private area of equity.

Related Reading | FTX Bags Naming Rights Of Cal Memorial Stadium For $17.5M To Display Their Brand

However, the XTZ ecosystem slacks the aspect of development, though it barely reflects on the price of the XTZ token.

The XTZ token trades at $5.56 in downward momentum | Source: XTZUSD on TradingView.com
Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView.com

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Reports Show 45% Surge In Stock And Cryptocurrency Sign-Ups Across Rural Areas In India

The high jump in new registrations is on 45% increase, equivalent to 70 million compared to the previous year. The BSE stock exchange revealed this information was in their data.

There had been an increasing number of users, mostly young investors in remote locations across India last year. According to the Economic Times report, these investors seek to buy and trade stocks and cryptocurrencies.

Related Reading | Total Cryptocurrency Market Cap Value Surges Across $1.9 Trillion Setting A New Record

The Times report states that Wealth management and Cryptocurrency platforms attract new users due to strong market performance. The success can also be attributed to increased awareness and targeted ads-the report added.

Report From BSE Stock Exchange Data

The report from the BSE stock exchange data revealed that the increase in new user sign-ups had reached 45%. This equals 70 million when rated with the figure of the previous year.

BSE stock exchange can be referred to as either the BSE Limited or the Bombay Stock Exchange. It’s an Indian stock exchange located on Dalal Street in Mumbai and was established in 1875.  BSE stock exchange is the oldest stock exchange in South Asia and the tenth oldest in the world.

As of August 23, new user registrations in Uttar Pradesh had an approximately 60% increase. In addition, the states of  Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Bihar also recorded a significant increase from the prior year.

The report reveals that CoinSwitch Kuber increased 135% in monthly growth from non-metro cities from last June. CoinSwitch Kuber is an app-based cryptocurrency exchange platform peculiar to the Indian market for retail investors. It’s a mobile application and supports trade in over 100 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, and Dash.

India’s Cryptocurrency Exchange Records Massive Growth

However, India’s CoinDCX grew by 48.7 times in new user registrations from the scarcely populated cities in India. This figure represents the growth rate of new user sign-ups for the past six months.

CoinDCX is India’s largest and safest cryptocurrency exchange. It provides a trading platform for buying and selling Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with ease. The exchange had raised $90 million (6.7 billion rupees) from investors during a funding round, giving it over $1 billion value.

Related Reading | FTX Bags Naming Rights Of Cal Memorial Stadium For $17.5M To Display Their Brand

According to a CoinDesk report in July, Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital Group led the funding round. However, the funding came out lower than the initial target of $10 million to $20 million. Other investors in the round are Polychain Capital, Coinbase, Jump Capital, and Block.one.

India is among the high populated country in the world. It has about 1.33 billion occupants. This makes it the second to China with 1.39 billion inhabitants, as revealed by the U.S. Census Bureau data.

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FTX Bags Naming Rights Of Cal Memorial Stadium For $17.5M To Display Their Brand

Cal Memorial Stadium has sold its naming rights to FTX during its second vital branding move. This venture was put forward after the purchase of the Miami Heat Arena’s naming rights in March.

FTX is a Crypto derivative exchange that bought the Cal Memorial Stadium from California University. This move by FTX aims to introduce its brand to the stadium.

This derivatives exchange owned by Sam Bankman-Fried is exploring further in sports. That is why; they have made a 10 year deal of $17M just for the university’s stadium naming rights.

The stadium’s home team, the Cal Golden Bears, will now carry the new brand to create more crypto awareness. As stated by Bloomberg, from now onwards, anytime the home team will play their game this season, they will be wearing the latest FTX Field brand.

Related Reading | Total Cryptocurrency Market Cap Value Surges Across $1.9 Trillion Setting A New Record

Furthermore, the $17 million deal for the university’s naming rights is paid in cryptocurrency assets. This current deal is the latest inroad into sports sponsoring to create more awareness for crypto.

FTX U.S. Partnered Miami Heat Basketball squad

Last March, FTX.US, a North American sector of this same exchange, signed a naming rights contract with the Miami Heat Basketball squad. Due to this partnership, the stadium’s home team was rebranded to an FTX Arena.

The organization also becomes the formal crypto exchange of MLB {Major League Baseball}. This is a segment of the sponsorship contract which is anticipated to remain for about 5 years. In fact, all the Major League Baseball umpire is expected to wear the firms’ mark on their respective uniforms.

Countless FTX executives have time-honored ties as well with the Cal Golden Bears. For instance, Sina Nader, the COO (Chief Operating Officer), serves as a Golden Bears walk-on member during his undergraduate years.

Last June, Tom Brady, the quarterback seven-time champion of the Super Bowl, and Gisele Bündchen, his wife, became Crypto derivative exchange’s partners to encourage crypto adoption. Because of this deal, Bündchen and Brady collected FTX equity stakes, each thus receiving crypto in exchange.

Furthermore, according to the report from our source on the 20th of July, FTX breaks the funding record of crypto. They raised their funding to $900 million to take on an “exchange decacorn” position. This particular company is worth more than $10 billion.

Related Reading | Microsoft To Fight Piracy With Ethereum, Introduces Project Argus

This latest deal by FTX as the Major League Baseball official sponsor has prepared the way for a wider and acceptable awareness for digital assets.

According to the tweet on Wednesday by Sam Bankman-Fried, this five-year contract may evolve to include alliances.

Featured Image From Pixabay

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Kraken Supports Ethereum 2.0 Clients Team Alongside Five DeFi Projects With A $250K Donation Each

Kraken and five other DeFi projects contribute $250,000 each to support the teams that work on the Ethereum upgrade. In addition, they donated the sum to the ETH Foundation to develop the network’s version 2.0.

Open-source developer teams like Erigon, Besu, Nimbus, Geth, and Nethermind will join the ETH Foundation in the donation.

1/ A diverse execution-layer client ecosystem is at the heart of all that we’re building together.

Today, we're excited to announce that @compoundgrants, @krakenfx, @LidoFinance, @synthetix_io, @graphprotocol & @Uniswap are donating $250K each to support #Ethereum client teams.

— Ethereum (@ethereum) August 24, 2021

The Ethereum Foundation announced the source of the donations. They mentioned that the tips came from crypto exchange Kraken, Synthetix, the Graph, Compound Grants, and Uniswap Grants.

Related Reading | Blockchain Startup In Pakistan Dubbed Bazaar Secures $30 Million In Funds

The donations will add to the funds the Foundation provided earlier back the layer teams of ETH execution.

The Funds Aim To Empower The Ethereum Team

The Foundation of what we build together incudes the various client ecosystem of Ethereum. It consists of the consensus layer clients and the execution layer; both are vital aspects of future Ethereum mergers. The announcement also reads:

“The donation sums up to $1.5 million and goes to open-source developer teams like Nimbus, Besu, Geth, Erigon, and Nethermind”.

The developer team is to make provision for the network’s critical infrastructure to see the transition of ETH. The ETH is to transit to proof-of-stake mechanism from a proof of work. An August 24th post on the Ethereum web page reads:

“In the heart of what we are developing together is a broad execution-layer client ecosystem. So today, we gladly announce that Kraken-fx, Uniswap, synthetix_io, graph-protocol, compound-grants, LidoFinance, and donates $250K each to support ETH 20 client teams.”

ETH is trading in a sideways momentum on the daily chart | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com

Jesse Powel, the co-founder and CEO of Kraken, says that the company is proud to give back to valiant builders who work hard on cutting-edge crypto innovation.

Kraken proposed that the exchange users would have staked up to 800,000 ETH in Eth2 by July. This is worth about $2.5 billion with current prices. The network platform had given out 25,300ETH as rewards emerging from staking when it started initially.

Related Reading | Kraken To Re-Enter The European Market By Applying For A New License

This project portrays an effort to ensure the security of Ethereum’s consistent growth and decentralization. Each of the elements is exemplified by the diversity of clients, our belief in Ethereum’s continued success, and the strength of the teams. The announcement revealed.

Etherscan Reports

The ETH Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559 upgrade was launched early this month. It introduces a burning mechanism as an aspect of its regulated gas fee structure.

According to Etherscan data, about 4.85 ETH worth almost $15,300 are burned every minute as of writing. Over 70,000 Ethereum (ETH) has been burned or removed from the network’s circulation.

Etherscan is a Block Explorer and Analytics Platform for Ethereum, a decentralized smart contracts platform. As of August 12, 31,792.48 ETH has been burned via Etherscan, amounting to $99,871,306.11.

Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView.com

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Kraken To Re-Enter The European Market By Applying For A New License

Kraken, following Brexit, seeks another license to re-surface in the European market with top choices, including Luxembourg, Malta, and Ireland.

Kraken is the second top crypto exchange in the United States by its trading volume. It is presently seeking a new license to re-enter the European market towards the end of 2021. Kraken has entered into a dialogue with regulators in various European countries to this effect.

Related Reading | Blockchain Startup In Pakistan Dubbed Bazaar Secures $30 Million In Funds

The exchange, according to Kraken’s spokesperson, initially operates in Europe. But its European clients can currently access it only through an entity registered with UK’s FCA (Financial Conduct Authority).

Kraken Claims Its Compliance To Rules

Kraken claims to have been complying with the applicable requirements of 5AMLD – EU’s Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive. The exit of Great Britain from the E.U. signifies that Kraken needs to source for re-entering the continent. Thus exchange’s spokesperson said earlier that;

“Kraken is an exchange that is regulatory compliant and exists in almost 190 jurisdictions across the globe. Though, it maintains constructive and proactive dialogues with crypto regulators in the fast-growing European regulatory landscape.’ He added that the firm plans always to be and remain regulatory compliant.”

The Kraken founder and CEO Jesse Powell stated that the company is working to obtain a European country license. He made this known during an interview with Handelsblatt, a German Business publication.

Powell added that the Kraken exchange seeks to re-enter Europe by the end of 202. It will go with the Republic of Ireland, Malta, and Luxembourg, among possible countries, to award such a license. However, they are yet to fix an official date as the talk still goes on.

In the past June, Coinbase received a trading and crypto custody license for its new German division. It’s the biggest crypto exchange in the United States and exchange’s main competitor with BaFin license-the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority. Coinbase also offers services to users across other European Countries.

Powell emphasized that the exchange is resistant to toll the same path as Coinbase. He added that the exchange also talked with BaFin but saw Germany’s climate condition to be harsh and restrictive. As a result, they found it too expensive to operate there with these conditions.

Kraken’s Conventional Approach To IPO

The crypto exchange was planning to raise fresh capital to raise the market valuation of San Francisco-based Company above $10 billion. This was revealed by a report earlier this year, which raised speculations that the exchange will finally go public. This was similar to the action Coinbase took in April via direct listing.

Related Reading | PayPal To Facilitate UK Customers With Cryptocurrency Trading Feature

On the listing, Powell confirmed that he plans to do something similar. However, he later accepted possible adjustments on the initial plans as he takes a closer look at a more traditional initial public offering.

Featured image from Kraken Medium

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David Marcus Of Facebook Indicates Plans To Support NFTs

According to David Marcus of Facebook, you must seek out ways to clients support NFTs if there is a good cryptocurrency wallet such as Novi.

After completing Facebook’s exclusive crypto wallet Novi, the top-notch social media magnet, will likely support NFTs (non-fungible tokens) very soon.

The co-creator and financial head of Facebook, David Marcus, launched cryptocurrency Diem. In his speech on Wednesday, he stated that Facebook is assuredly searching for realizable ways to enter into the Non-fungible-Tokens industry.

Facebook is considering many different choices to launch the NFT features when the right time comes, says Marcus in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Related Reading | 37% Of U.S. Investors Decline To Liquidate Cryptocurrency Assets in Bearish Situations

According to him, “with a good cryptocurrency wallet such as Novi, there is the need for you to think on how to assist clients support non-fungible-tokens,” he says.

Crypto wallet Novi is currently “ready for launch,” says Marcus. However, after developing the wallet for two years now, Facebook is not in a hurry to launch it, pending the firm’s go-ahead from regulators to launch together with Diem.

The Origin Of Facebook Backed Crypto-Wallet Novi

Facebook started the work on this digital currency a couple of years ago, initially bearing answering Libra. On June 18th Facebook broadcasted a white paper for their long-awaited blockchain-based and cryptocurrency financial framework project.

As stated by the paper, the social media magnet global stablecoin named “Libra” will function on a scalable and native blockchain. Also, it will be supported by reserve assets designed ostensibly to provide it with intrinsic value and reduce volatility fluctuations.

All the assets comprise a basket of short-term government securities and bank deposits, held within Libra Reserve per every issued Libra.

In addition, the governance of the current crypto will be through a Switzerland-based not-for-profit consortium – “Libra Association.” It counts Stripe, Visa, PayPal, Mastercard, Uber, Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase, and eBay as its founding members.

Meanwhile, Facebook has plans to further the association to reach at least 100 members by the estimated launching time during the first six months of 2020.

Latest Novi Launch Resolution

As it stands now, the social media magnet Facebook may go ahead with the Novi launching without Diem says Marcus as a fallback plan. However, for Diem to succeed, both of them are required, he added.

In June 2019, Facebook broadcasted a white paper for the then-named Libra. The original plan was to stick numerous fiat currencies with this digital currency, including the US, Singapore, British pounds, Japanese yen, and the euro.

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However, because of the pushbacks from global regulations, Libra Association finds it difficult to the stablecoin since then.

Eventually, the digital currency is currently rebranded to Diem Association. Also, the digital currency is redesigned to be stuck majorly on the United States dollar. In addition, the United States government will regulate it.

Featured Image From Pixabay

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Blockchain Startup In Pakistan Dubbed Bazaar Secures $30 million In Funds

Bazaar Technologies, a Pakistani blockchain marketplace, successfully raised about $30M in Pakistani’s biggest Series A round.

An announcement made by Bazaar states that August 24th will be the closing of its raise. It also reveals that Singapore’s Wavemaker Partners and Silicon Valley-based Defy Partners were the leaders of the funding round.

Many other investors also participated in the funding round, including Japan’s Saison Capital, LinkedIn, Endeavor, and numerous present-day investors such as Alter Global and Indus Valley Capital.

Related Reading | PayPal To Facilitate UK Customers With Cryptocurrency Trading Feature

In Pakistan, Bazaar asserts that they are the leading Business-to-business marketplace group for small-scale merchants. They serve up to 750,000 merchants across 400 villages and towns.

The majority of those that make use of Bazaar are small-scale ‘mom-and-pop grocery stores known locally as “Kiryana Stores.” They buy stock from suppliers through this platform.

Bazaar’s round this period has grown its funding to $37.8 million. This figure grew from its $6.5M seed round of January 2021 after eight months of its launching and its pre-seed round of $1.3M in June 2020.

The seed-round was co-led by the Global Founders Capital based in Berlin. The seed round was the firm’s first Pakistani investment. Also, VC Indus Valley Capital is another partner in the June seed round last year.

Bazaar Seed Round Is The Largest In Pakistan

Furthermore, the data shows that this latest seed round is the largest of its kind ever raised in Pakistan at a startup level. As a result of this raise, Bazaar right now has a total of $7.8 million. This makes it the largest funded startup in all of Pakistan.

Furthermore, Bazaar also brought in top global and regional organizations as well as angel investors. For example, Wavemaker Partners based in Singapore, Early-stage VC S7V, Saudi’s Derayah Venture Capital, and Next Billion Ventures based in the United States participate in the seed round.

Hamza Jawaid and Saad Janda founded Bazaar in 2019. Janga was formerly the product manager of Careem, a local Uber subdivision, whereas Jawaid worked in McKinsey, a management consulting company.

In recent months, the Pakistani government has initiated strategic ways of building a better regulatory apparatus that will be permissive to the country’s crypto sector.

Related Reading | 37% Of U.S. Investors Decline To Liquidate Cryptocurrency Assets in Bearish Situations

The Pakistani Securities and Exchange Commission issued a consultation paper in November. The paper surveyed the advantages of cryptocurrency assets as well as tokenization. In addition, the paper also embraced the industry feedback regarding the development of local regulations.

In March, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a Pakistani province, announced how it would manage two hydro-powered cryptocurrency mining farms for a government-supported mining pilot.

Featured image from Pixabay

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PayPal To Facilitate UK Customers With Cryptocurrency Trading Feature

PayPal users with accredited identities will start accessing cryptocurrency trading soon. However, cryptocurrency transactions for its business account are not supported yet.

Starting from this week, U.K residents will have initial access to buying, holding, and selling cryptos via PayPal. This development will make a remarkable milestone for a firm that started providing digital asset services within one year.

PayPal is an American multinational financial technology company that operates an online payments system. It’s a global payment provider with services accessed in most countries that support online money transfers.

PayPal serves as an electronic alternative to traditional payment methods such as checks and money orders.

Related Reading | 37% Of U.S. Investors Decline To Liquidate Cryptocurrency Assets in Bearish Situations

On Sunday, the popular payment provider declared its intent to allow U.K customers access to cryptos. The cryptos are Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin (BTC). Of course, you can always access them via mobile app or website.

The Sunday announcement marked PayPal’s first expansion of crypto services outside the U.S and was initially launched last year November.

PayPal Aims To Boost Cryptocurrency Exposure In U.K.

Jose Fernandez da Ponte cited money digitization during COVID-19 as one of the main motivations for embracing crypto. Jose Fernandez is a high-ranked executive for PayPal’s cryptocurrency division. He added that;

“Our expertise on global digital payments provides us with the opportunity and responsibility of helping U.K. residents to explore cryptocurrency. This adds to our businesses and consumers knowledge combined with various security and compliance controls.”

By making its crypto services available to U.K. residents, the online payment giant plays a role in increasing the country’s cryptocurrency exposure.

After a sudden pullback, the market is back on bullish track | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap on TradingView.com

According to reports, the payment giant has the highest penetration among other European countries in U.K.with over 2 million active users monthly.

Rumors on PayPal’s crypto expansion proposal have been in circulation since the past month after Dan Schulman’s speech. Dan Schulman’s CEO had earlier informed investors on the soon coming PayPal services to the U.K. residents.

Reports further show that PayPal’s eye development in Defi is a precursor to integration plans in the future. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on regulation in the U.K. goes down on some crypto exchanges. These are exchanges that have not met their registration demands.

Related Reading | Facebook Officials Claim Novi Received Approval From Major U.S. States

For example, FCA shuttered the operations of Binance U.K. after warning them against providing regulated trading activity in the country this summer.

PayPal’s da Pote Jose gave assurance that his company will keep working with U.K. regulators and others to roll out its cryptocurrency services.

Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView.com

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37% Of U.S. Investors Decline To Liquidate Cryptocurrency Assets in Bearish Situations

Recent research reveals that US cryptocurrency investors have an average allocation of $1,107 in digital assets. About 37% of the investors confessed non-liquidation of their crypto holdings even for important bills or other payments.

However, there’s this discovery that Elon Musk has a great influence on the crypto-related decisions of most respondents.

A survey of 1,000 US crypto investors by GamblersPick, a betting platform, displayed a shocking revelation. 37% of these holders won’t dispose of their assets irrespective of the circumstance. Furthermore, 51% confirmed that luxury purchases wouldn’t be too enticing for them to opt for cash out.

Also, the survey took a critical examination of the different generations of crypto investors. It reveals that the Baby boomer and Generation Z groups have the largest and the least investment in cryptocurrency, respectively.

In addition, the male forks have more interest in digital investment than women, with an average of $1,940 worth of cryptocurrencies. On the other hand, the statistics for the female is at a median value of $1,375 worth of digital assets.

Related Reading | Facebook Officials Claim Novi Received Approval From Major U.S. States

From its survey, GamblersPick discovered an increase in the demand for digital assets among US investors. This recent surge in demand even prompts people to borrow cash from family and friends to invest. It reflects in the results of the use of credit cards in purchasing cryptocurrencies by every fourth respondent.

The investors revealed that they plan to increase their cryptocurrency investments by adding an average of  $1,645 within 12 months. The statistics have men on the lead again with the proposal of increasing with $1,988 while women plan for $1,100.

What Influences Decisions Of Cryptocurrency Investors?

Furthermore, the research reveals the reason behind the recent increase in interest in crypto investments. Most of the respondents, amounting to about 75%, confirmed their confidence in a future surge in the value of digital assets. Moreover, while 24% see cryptocurrency as a means of gaining great returns, 32% use it to diversify their portfolio.

The cryptocurrency market is back on track after a bearish pullback | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap on TradingView.com

Additionally, about 21% of the participants used cryptocurrency as a hedge over inflation that emanates from the swindle in the economic condition. The recent COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the massive national currency print-out, are contributory factors.

Related Reading | Solana Continues Bullish Trend, Becomes The 10th Largest Cryptocurrency

Also, online forums and social media have a prominent influence on cryptocurrency-related decisions and moves on U.S. investors. Among them is Reddit that topped the list having about 34% influential power.

Others include Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook, with their influences rated as 26%, 23%, and 16%, respectively. When it comes to influences from individuals, a man stands out among others. His influence is even greater than those from the mentioned companies above.

He is Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, a popular electrical car company. 35% of the research respondents confessed that their choices in digital assets are based on Musk’s statements, opinions, and tweets.

Other influencers are Warren Buffett ranking second and Snoop Dogg, the rap star, ranking third. They have an influential rating of 9% and 7%, respectively.

Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView.com

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Facebook Officials Claim Novi Received Approval From Major U.S. States

David Marcus, an executive in Facebook, released the regulatory information concerning Novi. The update states the current status of Diem’s crypto wallet.

Through a recent blog post, Marcus confirmed the approval for Novi in almost every state in the United States. Also, he revealed that it will not be launched in places where it has yet to get approval.

The Facebook executive mentioned that project commits not to launch Novi on Diem without the necessary clearance. Moreover, he states that the project still keeps to its commitments. As such, there’s an ongoing consultation with international regulators.

Furthermore, Marcus disclosed some information about Novi’s features and functions. According to him, the crypto wallet will enable free person-to-person payments within and outside the U.S. He explained the possibility for a future Novi’s profitability from merchant payments. This could be effective if the project will build a larger customer base.

Related Reading | Solana Continues Bullish Trend, Becomes The 10th Largest Cryptocurrency

Marcus added that they could diversify and provide a range of other financial services. These could be achieved through collaborations with prominent, reputable, and regulated partners that will bring expansion.

How has The Facebook Project Fared?

From the current news on Facebook’s crypto, the project is progressively moving to its launching period. This’s after over 2 years through the period of development and delay in the project.

The announcement of the project was in June 2019. However, some issues surrounded it immediately after that. Also, most of the project members exited the Diem Association in early October 2019.

Some of the old members to exit the group include Paypal, Mastercard, and Visa. Consequently, many European regulatory made moves to crack down on the project within the period. The same time brought Mark Zuckerberg to face the U.S. Congress concerning Facebook involvement.

From the multiple issues, Diem was forced to move for a rebrand this year. This probably shifted its attention to the US.

The rebranding process is meant to give the project independence from Facebook’s involvement. However, the project before its rebranding had several concerning Facebook’s direct involvement. Some of the concerns were the misuse of Facebook in legitimate activities and funding of terrorism.

Related Reading | Coinbase States Infrastructure Bill Could Impact 60 Million American Crypto Owners

Additionally, to boost its new stance, Diem, through its rebranding, selected some new members to its team. The move was for better repositioning in compliance with regulations and regulatory bodies. So, the aim is not just to create a name but to perform beyond the name.

Recall that before now, Diem has passed through several tracks as different brands and trademarks. Some of the previous brands include Globalcoin, Facebook Coin, and Libra.

Also, Facebook, in May, revealed its plans of launching Diem as a stable coin with the U.S. dollar’s backing. Invariably, it took the project out from several other international currencies.

However, neither Marcus, Facebook, nor the Diem Association gave any possible release date for the wallet or stable coin.

Featured image from Pixabay

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Solana Continues Bullish Trend, Becomes The 10th Largest Cryptocurrency

Solana, with its fast-growing ecosystem, has found a position at the forefront within the crypto space. By hitting $314 million in its private token sales, Solana crept the headlines in early June. Polychain and Andreessen Horowitz pioneered the Solana token sales.

This funding impacted greatly in developing the fast-growing ecosystem of Solana. This pushes it as one of the top competitors to Ethereum, the blockchain with the widest usage.

Before now, the Ethereum blockchain has high demand from crypto users and investors. Unfortunately, this results in network congestion and exorbitant transaction fees.

The congestion propelled the great opportunities for sidechains and Layer 2 solutions. Also, Layer 1 networks can take from the loopholes and create scalable decentralized apps beyond Ethereum. Solana falls under such Layer 1 networks.

Related Reading | Coinbase States Infrastructure Bill Could Impact 60 Million American Crypto Owners

Founded in 2017, the project team realized over $25 million through its private and public ICO token sales. March 2020 brought the release of the main net beta.

The project is reputable for its 400ms block time and 50,000 throughput for transactions per second. This performance is higher than Bitcoin and Ethereum’s current version by several thousands of times. Though both of these formers platforms rely on Proof-of-Work consensus.

Solana has a theoretical capacity of 700,000 transactions per second through its focus on scale for more adoption, as contained in its whitepaper.

The technological design of Solana accounts for its high performance in scalability. The blockchain can process transactions horizontally in parallel using its sea-level runtime. Thus, the blockchain has continuous scalability with validator GPU improvements, thereby maintaining low fees.

The CEO of Solana Labs, Anatoly Yakovenko, reveals that the network’s scalability level is proportionally linked to hardware computation. This accounts for its execution of tens of thousands of transactions of smart contracts in parallel.

Also, the network uses several GPU cores to validators. The major network down part is that running a specialized hardware validator can cost thousands of dollars.

Solana Performance Trend

Solana satisfies its aim of having a distributed system for transaction scalability in proportion to its bandwidth.

The network achieves its aim through the use of some features like the consensus algorithm Tower BFT. Other outstanding enabling features are the Proof-of-History and Proof-of-History-Optimized versions of BFT.

The network currently boasts over 900 validators. Though Ethereum remains the most Defi smart contract blockchain, Solana has made a name than other Layer 1 chains. It’s more decentralized than Binance Smart Chain, Polkadot, Fantom, and Cosmos.

Solana has maintained a bullish momentum and it seems to be on an upward direction | Source: SOLUSD on TradingView.com

Several new protocols are building on the Solana blockchain to leverage its fast and low transaction fees. This has propelled more rise of more dApps in the Defi ecosystem.

The ecosystem now has more decentralized exchanges, yield aggregators, automated market makers, and stablecoin swap platforms.

Related Reading | SushiSwap Narrowly Escaped A $350 Million DeFi Hack, Here’s How

Others include NFT marketplaces: wallets, gaming platforms, and derivatives. The Chain also has projects based on infrastructures such as block explorers, oracles, launchpads, and data analytics tools.

When it comes to its operability, unlike Ethereum, SOL has no support for Solidity programming language. So, it’s not EVM compatible, and this puts a gap in its competition with Ethereum.

However, the Solana network utilizes Rust as its programming language. Fortunately, Rust is becoming one of the preferred languages in the most developing communities in the Defi ecosystem.

Furthermore, Neon Labs plans on providing SOL with EVM compatibility by porting Solidity smart contracts on the network.

Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView.com

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Coinbase States Infrastructure Bill Could Impact 60 Million American Crypto Owners

Coinbase’s global tax VP has condemned Congress’s controversial decision to introduce crypto tax provisions into the infrastructural bill. They warned that this bill might impact 20% of the U.S population, which is like 60 million Americans.

The VP of tax leveraged the rushed crypto provisions added to Congress’s bipartisan infrastructure bill. Lawrence Zlatkin slammed lawmakers at the last minute for hastily including amendments that can affect 60 million Americans.

Coinbase Global is an American company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform. It’s among the popular online brokers globally and currently supports traders from over 30 countries. Coinbase operates remote-first and lacks an official physical headquarters.

Related Reading | SushiSwap Narrowly Escaped A $350 Million DeFi Hack, Here’s How

A blog post made on August 21 aimed at the Bloomberg editorial article of August 19. The post also commended the crypto provisions for infrastructural bills.

However, Coinbase’s Global VP of tax, Zlatkin, also criticized no provision for public consultation regarding the legislation. He also estimated that about 20% of U.S. residents are into digital asset investment.

 “About 60 million Americans own crypto today and this makes almost one-fifth of the total U.S. population. The entire populace including those Americans merits more discourse than midnight offers implemented at the dying minute.”

Coinbase Officials Claim Bill Is Unfavorable For The Crypto-Community

Lawrence Zlatkin accounts that resentment over the bill’s content extends beyond the scope of the crypto space. The massive public outcry estimates that nearly 80 thousand people had contacted senators in just some days.

The Coinbase global executive highlighted the general definition of a crypto-asset broker as contained in the bill.

This may inflict a strict requirement on the reporting process for software developers and network validators. As a result, these officials may be unable to meet their roles as contained in the bill with the new requirement.

So far bill mandates the software developers, stakers, and miners to do the impracticable, then they are bound to comply.

No practicing lawyer will support them to operate in violation of these laws and risk the penalty for not complying. The penalty for non-compliance that can easily render them bankrupt’ Coinbase executive said and added;

“This development will greatly affect innovation and restrain the emergence of important technology at the early stage of development. Tax policy is supposed to be deliberate and thoughtful, broad overreach is simply a regulatory error.’”

Lawrence Zlatkin also states that digital assets brokers should adopt a similar third-party reporting process as mainstream brokers.

Related Reading | Uniswap Community Reacts Against The New Proposal, Here is Why

The infrastructure bill was issued to the Senate early this month. The populace hopes that there would be amendment opportunities on the legislation as the House plans to scrutinize it in a few months.

Featured image from Pixabay

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Uniswap Community Reacts Against The New Proposal, Here is Why

The Uniswap community is debating against a new proposal that favors Flipside Crypto to the tune of $25 million in funding. The funding is for two years, but the arguments against it are numerous.

Many DeFi protocols such as Uniswap provide governance tokens for people to participate in core decisions on their network.

The recent proposal also passed through the votes of the community. Although, before the vote for the proposal could be concluded, Dune Analytics raised the alarm against it.

The Flipside Proposal

The proposal states that holders of UNI will get funds from the project’s treasury to give it $15 million in grants. If the whole program succeeds, an additional $10 million will also go to Flipside next year.

Accordingly, Flipside will channel half of the grant to bounties for new Uniswap users who want to learn everything about analytics and DeFi as a whole.

Related Reading | SushiSwap Narrowly Escaped A $350 Million DeFi Hack, Here’s How

The bounties aim at attracting new users and holding them. Flipside anticipates that such a program would raise 900 new members who won’t cash out the bounties but remain in the network.

This is not the first of such programs that Flipside is funding. It is funding others such as yearn, Aave, Uniswap. Another thing is that this proposal would enable people to fund the service. Also, some other analytics providers who will be eligible include The Graph and Dune.

Flipside To Use Uniswap Governance For Educational Services

According to the proposal, Flipside will use half of the grant to run the program. They will pay up to seven staff members full salaries and seven other half salaries from the grant. Then the yield from the program will go into its funding.

Also, Flipside aims to use Uniswap’s governance process to become an official provider of continuing education services. It also expects payments for the services. Also, the seven members of the committee will generate 30% of the funds they receive.

The daily chart shows Uniswap is falling by 2% as the community criticizes the new proposal | Source: UNIUSD on TradingView.com

Another three-member committee will vote for the continuation of the program to another year. All the committees are from Flipside, giving it total power.  With such a structure, a lot of people have raised concerns about the proposal.

Before this controversy, one has occurred in July and caused a lot of commotion in the community. The “DeFi Education Fund” proposal and its controversy led another group to launch a new initiative called “Builder-First Legal Activism DAO” by LeXpunK.

Related Reading | Why Chinese Banks Are Adding Digital Yuan To Apps? Here’s What You Need To Know

Many people voted against this proposal after Dune Analytics raised the alarm. Many people agreed that the proposal wasn’t okay, including Compound CEO John Palmer of PartyDAO and Dharma & Argent wallet teams.

However, it seems that it won’t be so easy to cancel the proposal. The people supporting it more are the university blockchain organization since it is about continuing education.

In addition, many of the top organizations in Standford, UC Berkeley, Michigan, and Penn have thrown in their support. So, there’s going to be a huge difficulty canceling.

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Why Chinese Banks Are Adding Digital Yuan To Apps? Here’s What You Need To Know

The Chinese Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is progressively spreading out to more users. This can be seen as 35 banks in China include the digital Yuan in their mobile apps.

According to a local report, the digital RMB App reveals a recent addition of more banks to the interface. Before now, the digital app only had 6 state-owned banks.

Furthermore, these added banks now have access to the digital renminbi App to recharge digital RMB wallets. The banks include city commercial banks, joint-stock firms, rural commercial banks, rural credit cooperatives, and others.

Related Reading | Bitcoin Bull Cathie Wood Attracts Big Short Michael Burry To ARK Innovation ETF

Also, the report from Shanghai Securities Journal states that both small and medium-sized banks are embracing digital currency. The state-owned journal explained that these financial firms are striving to avail e-CNY services to their clients.

How The Digital Yuan Testing Has Progressed

From the initial testing of the digital yuan in the country, the process had only the prominent Chinese 6 state-owned banks. Subsequently, as more adoption of cryptocurrency flow into several mainstreams, the testing includes more firms.

As a result, financial organizations such as city banks, joint-stock companies, and rural credit cooperatives constitute the recent 35 banks in the testing.

In the same vein, 94 banks are planning to embed the digital yuan. The local report includes 3 foreign banks,15 private banks, and 76 city commercial banks. They plan to utilize a new clearing platform to access the digital yuan.

Furthermore, the report discloses a private Shanghai-based firm, City Bank, that built the clearing platform. City Bank Clearing is a reputable platform in the financial industry, and it also provides outstanding financial technology.

Related Reading | SushiSwap Narrowly Escaped A $350 Million DeFi Hack, Here’s How

Moreover, the report mentions that JD.com, an e-commerce giant, has successfully undergone CBDC testing on its platform. Before now, the company participated as well as funded trials in readiness for its testing. It’s making a move to meet the demands of its business customers.

The recent activities indicate more expansion of digital yuan trials across the country. Due to the popularity of cryptocurrency, more companies are opting for digital yuan testing. Even the People’s Bank of China has indicated its interest in the test during Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022.

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SushiSwap Narrowly Escaped A $350 Million DeFi Hack, Here’s How

The DeFi exchange SushiSwap would have joined the many projects that lost millions to the dubious activities of online hackers. For instance, Poly network lost $600 million in a similar hack one week ago. The good news is that the miscreants have returned many of the assets.

It could have been a terrible blow if Sushiswap followed suit with a $350 million loss after Poly Network. Luckily, a white-hat hacker saved the day for the firm. Samczsun, a Paradigm research partner shared the report.

According to him, the investigation on the smart contract code for the “BitDAO token sale” started on August 17.

Related Reading | Bitcoin Bull Cathie Wood Attracts Big Short Michael Burry To ARK Innovation ETF

The sale took place on Sushiswap’s “MISO” platform, a place where developers can launch their new tokens. It was, of course, successful, and the project raised $365 million without issues. But they could have lost everything to hackers due to a smart contract code error.

A Brief on Smart Contracts

Smart contracts are codes that perform different instructions on the blockchain. These codes are important as they ensure the proper functioning of the dApps (decentralized applications) on the blockchain.

These apps span across DeFi protocols and facilitate lending, trading, and borrowing transactions that occur without third-party controls.

These codes are supposed to be secure and accurate. But according to the researcher, there was an error in the code that could have helped attackers steal all the money from the token sale. According to him, the issue was way bigger than he thought at first as it could have caused a loss of $350million loss.

Fortunately, samcszan discovered this bug and even contacted his colleagues, including Dan Robinson and Georgios Konstantopoulos to check it out too. The three researchers quickly reached out to the SushiSwap team for solutions.

After discussing it with SushiSwap and an Immunefi representative, they decided that the sale should be stopped to enable them to fix the bug.

SushiSwap Reacts To The Issue

Based on the information we got, SushiSwap has disclosed that they didn’t lose any funds to attackers. But the team stated that the sale would stop temporarily to enable them to update the code. The DeFi protocol is very popular and is one of the largest protocols in the sector.

SushiSwap is trading in a downward momentum on the daily chart | Source: SUSHIUSD on TradingView.com

SushiSwap records a total of $444 million in its trading volume, and users usually make a lot of returns by staking in its liquidity pools. The protocol went live last year 2020 as a Uniswap copycat. But it made a name after launching the native token called SUSHI.

Related Reading | Microsoft To Fight Piracy With Ethereum, Introduces Project Argus

Luckily, the protocol has avoided a heavy exploit that would have set it back negatively, thanks to the white hat hacker.

Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView.com

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Bitcoin Bull Cathie Wood Attracts Big Short Michael Burry To ARK Innovation ETF

After overcoming the subprime mortgage catastrophe, Michael Burry now sets his sights on ETF ARK’s flagship invention from Bitcoin Bull Cathie wood, which finances companies like Square, GBTC, and Tesla.

The “Big Short Movie” lead character Michael Burry takes a major temporary stand against ARK, the ETF innovation of Cathie Wood.

As stated by second quarter 13 fillings, Michael Burry’s investment fund “Scion Asset Management” bought up to $31million bearish put options against the ETF 235,000 shares. The best way to profit when there is a decrease in the fund or stock value is through “PUT” options.

ARK’s largest fund, Innovation ETF, is financed with $22.62 billion in assets. Its purpose is to finance various troublesome tech companies such as Coinbase, Square, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, and Tesla. According to the second quarter 13 filings, other firms apart from Bury have also reduced the ARK’s flagship funds.

Related Reading | Microsoft To Fight Piracy With Ethereum, Introduces Project Argus

For instance, up to $171 million put options are held by Laurion against the 1.3M shares of Cormorant Asset Management, Moore Capital Management, and Golden Tree Asset Management’s extensive bearish positions.

However, Cathie Wood seems to enjoy this challenge, according to her Twitter post.

“To Michael Burry’s credit, his decision was sound based on the basics as well as the brewing crisis in the mortgage/housing market. Unfortunately, Burry don’t seem to understand the basics that are generating volatile investment and growth opportunities within the innovation scope”.

Cathie Wood On Cryptocurrencies

Cathie Wood believes strongly in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. That is why ARK has become partners with the Switzerland-based 21 Shares. She intends to create an EFT Bitcoin.

Furthermore, ARK Invest bought over 450,000 GBTC shares in one month with two different buys. Also, ARK bought another $110 million share from Coinbase in April, and some of the shares are for Innovation ETF.

Meanwhile, Burry is a Bitcoin and crypto magnet. He has warned about “unmanageable valuation” within the market in the following months.

Related Reading | Ethereum 2.0 Becomes The Leading Hodler of Ether With $21.5 Billion in Funds

In June, Burry also warned that retail investors might be enticed to the “biggest of all other crashes” by their investments into meme stocks and cryptocurrencies. He stated.

“What the speculations/hype will achieve is to lure in retails pending a terrible crash. By the time meme stocks crash from its tens of billions and crypto from its trillions, then #MainStreet losses may reach up to the width of Countries”.

Burry became famous after calling the collapse of the housing markets during the “Global Financial Crisis.”

He also made huge profits through the mortgage crisis. In addition, Burry is best known for “The Big Short,” a book written by Michael Lewis, which won an Oscar award with its movie.

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Ethereum 2.0 Becomes The Leading Hodler of Ether With $21.5 Billion in Funds

Presently, the staking contract of Eth2 has become the largest holder of Ethereum. Moreover, it is compliant with ERC-20 standards and leads the other projects using the same tokens.

The blockchain analytics source Nansen carries that the staking contract of Eth2 has exceeded that of WETH (Wrapped Ethereum) and is now the largest single Eher holder.

Furthermore, unlike Eth, wrapped Ether meets the ERC-20 standard, making it the best ETH representation champion amidst decentralized finance projects that employ ERC-20 tokens.

Related Reading | Microsoft To Fight Piracy With Ethereum, Introduces Project Argus

Alex Svanevik, the Nansen CEO, put up his findings on Twitter this Tuesday. According to the available data, the deposit contract of Beacon Chain consists of 6.73 million ETH – roughly valued at $21.5 billion at present rates.

Check who's #1 ETH holder now guys! pic.twitter.com/3isDLkrv7I

— Alex Svanevik ✨ (@ASvanevik) August 16, 2021

While on the other side of the coin, the data by Nansen shows that the contract of Wrapped Ethereum consists of 6.7 million ETH, roughly valued at $21.4 billion. Binance follows with 2.29 million ETH, which is roughly valued at $7.3 billion.

As maintained by CoinMarketCap, the sum of Ether staked and locked on Eth2 now constitutes 5.7% of the circulating supply of Ethereum. Moreover, the Eth2 network has up to 210,000 validators at this time, Beaconcha.in claims.

At this time, the staked Ether on Eth2 are all confined, and users cannot withdraw them from the contract until the impending Ethereum chain merges to join Eth2 and Ethereum networks. At present, the anticipated chain integration will happen within the first six months of 2022.

Ethereum 2.0 Occupies Third Position In POS Network

As per Staking Rewards, the top 3 proof-of-stake network is Eth2 through staked capitalization. It is therefore positioned behind Solana’s $27.5 billion and Cardona’s $49 billion.

The news went live a short time after the major Ethereum’s breakthrough for the Eth2 roadmap and the successful deployment of the network upgrades in London on the 5th of August.

Related Reading | Total Cryptocurrency Market Cap Value Surges Across $1.9 Trillion Setting A New Record

This hard fork introduced the greatly expected Improvement Proposal 1559 of Ethereum. This proposal introduces the accurate transaction price, which is burned from the fees generated on the network.

According to Ultrasound.Money, users have destroyed up to 54,916 ETH or $175 million through transaction fees in the 12 days following the London fork.

At the current burn rate involving 3.28 ETH, users might destroy above 140,000 ETH every month if the network keeps operating optimally.

 

At the time of writing, ETH has lost at least 3.94% of its price in the last 24 hours | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com
Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView.com